With several awards under its belt, Shoya Nouvelle should come across as one of the top Japanese restaurants in Melbourne. Despite some of the negative reviews online as well as advise from personal friends who have visited the restaurant, we still decided to give this place a go.
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| Kani & Hotate Filo Age $10ea |
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| Unagi Canape $12ea |
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| Hokkaido Crab Tempura $33ea |
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| Grilled Swordfish Cheek $105 |
Knowing swordfish isn't a small fish, when the dish arrived we were still shocked by the scale of it. It was a true team effort as we carved the fish. It was so meaty it felt like we were sharing a steak as opposed to fish. The meaty bits were surprisingly tender as the fish oil had completely rendered into the meat. But the best part was the skin which had a charred smokiness.
We don't normally comment on service, but we feel like Shoya could definitely work on this. The waitresses were not attentive, and forgot to tell us that the cheese pork katsu that we ordered is actually not available for lunch. We only found out when we chased them for the dish.
For a lunch at $90pp, we were expecting the restaurant to change the plates, particularly when they had become full with bones. It wasn't a particularly busy day and the waitresses made no attempt to check how we were going. We were also served a smelly hot towel, the smell could've been picked up from feet away.
In conclusion, we had a mixed bag of feelings towards this place. The good was the overall creative menu, the bad was the food was hit-and-miss, with certain areas poorly executed. The worst was the poor and inattentive service, certainly not a good match for the price.
Food: 6/10
Service: 3/10
Atmosphere: 5/10
Highlight:
- Swordfish collar was impressive
- Crab legs
- Eel was comprehensively underwhelming
- Bill shock from the Swordfish cheek
- Service and atmosphere didn't live up to the price
